Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
The historian David Starkey was on the BBC yesterday, he said there were only two countries in the world were clerics were automatically part of the governing system - Iran and the UK (cos bishops make up part of the House of Lords here).  |
That's why they are called the "Lords, Spiritual and Temporal" - the Bishops being the "Spiritual Lords" and the rest the "Temporal Lords". I believe, though, that there are "conventions" about what the Bishops do and don't involve themselves with.
As you say, certainly not typical of the rest of Europe!